Peter Gruenwald

Peter Gruenwald was a German-American born (March 12 1912 Burlington, New Jersey Riverside, New Jersey - July 1979 Washington, D.C.) who was Lufthansa cargo agent at John F. Kennedy International Airport. In some conflicting articles his last name is written as "Gruenewald". Peter was a co-worker and close friend of cargo supervisor Louis Werner who would plan with him a robbery of $22,000 in 1972 and later the more famous 1978 Lufthansa heist. In the made for television movie "The 10 Million Dollar Getaway" Peter is portrayed as "Peter Gruenwald" by actor Gerry Bamman.

Biography

Peter Gruenwald was a Jewish German-American born in Riverside, Burlington, New Jersey after World War II to German immigrants from Grünwald, Bavaria, where his name was derived from. His parents who originally worked and resided in New York City later moved out to Levittown, New York. They settled in Levittown, a post-war development. Gruenwald gambled and preferred placing his bets to bookmakers when gambling, because at the legal off-track betting parlors, if he won, he had to pay them a certain percentage of taxes and fees taken directly from his winnings. With bookmakers, the bettor doesn't pay anything if they win, and they also paid better odds than the state. Because of his gambling addiction Gruenwald lost interest in his mundane airport job very easily and had difficulties handling problematic situations at home and work. His job consisted of giving quotations, queries, rates, handling airline shipment bookings, arranging custom clearances, deliveries and invoices, and directly dealt with airlines, shipping liners and freight forwarders. He suffered from the psychological disorder of being pathological gambling addict. While talking to friends and co-workers he was very controlling and had Antisocial personality disorder which brought up problems avoiding emotional problems that arose bringing distance between he and his estranged wife.

In the late 1960s or early 1970s Gruenwald's wife, a Laotian immigrant, left him and travelled back to Thailand to be with her family. Peter was employed as a freight handler at John F. Kennedy Airport from 1970 to 1979 to help pay off his gambling debts. He was one of the older workers employed at the terminal and had little seniority with the terminal, being overlooked because of his age and inexperience. Through working at the airport he would become a close friend of his supervisor and co-worker Louis Werner who was also of German descent. Peter and Louis shared many things in common, including amateur bowling and problem gambling and becoming in debt to Martin Krugman. Peter and Louis became friends and would spend their afternoons drinking at The Bamboo Lounge gambling their paychecks away overnight. Peter was also a long-time loanshark customer of Angelo McConnach but would always dutifully pay back his debts through stolen merchandise from the airport. Even though there was a twenty-one year age difference between Peter and his friend and supervisor Louis Werner, Peter became close friends with his forty-six year old co-worker and boss.

The 1976 Lufthansa theft

On October 8, 1976, Gruenwald helped Louis Werner steal $22,000 in German currency from the Lufthansa terminal. On October 9, the following day Louis Werner took the money which was still in a cardboard shipping package to Gruenwald’s home Levittown, New York home to store it. Gruenwald hid the money at a local garbage dump then retrieved it the following morning on October 10 before going to work. After keeping it in his car, during their lunch hour Gruenwald met Werner at a gas station in Canarsie, Brooklyn where they transferred the money into shopping bags. The two men then tore the cardboard box to pieces and drove around town depositing the ripped up portions into various dumpsters and garbage cans on the street. That night Gruenwaldburied the money in his home's backyard in a suitcase. A week later Louis Werner got the money and delivered it to his accountant friend Bill Fischetti to launder several foreign exchange banks in Manhattan.

earching for a robbery team

When his friend and co-worker Louis Werner came up with the robbery plan for the Lufthansa heist, Peter was given the task of frequenting the airport bars like the TWA Flight Center's Union News Restaurant and Coffee Shop at JFK Airport, the Bamboo Lounge, the Airline Diner at 69-35 Astoria Boulevard in Astoria, Queens, the bar at the Holiday Inn located at 144-02 15th Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, The Motion Lounge at 420 Graham Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club or 101 Club on at 101st Street in South Ozone Park, Queens, the lounge at the Kew Motor Inn in Kew Garden Hills or canvassing for a team that could pull off the robbery. Peter met this one notorious barroom rowdy and was planning on hiring him for the job, but he found that the man was not serious enough. Louis became angry at his Gruenwald's incompetence and took matters into his own hands, giving the plans to his numbers-runner Frank Menna who then introduced the plan to Werner's regular bookmaker Martin Krugman who he became in debt with again in 1978.

After the Lufthansa heist

Following the Lufthansa heist, Gruenwald and Werner was named as likely suspects by their fellow workers at JFK Airport including night-shift Air France cargo foreman Robert McMahon and fellow Air France cargo agent Joe Manri who was a suspected "stick up" man for the Lufthansa heist. He was later overheard talking to Angelo Sepe from a small radio transmitter that the FBI had installed in Sepe's 1978 Thunderbird boasting to Peter about the success of the robbery.

Turning State's Evidence

After being implicated for his role in the Lufthansa heist he became State's Evidence and was held as a key witness in the investigation. His testimony led to Werner being convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in a federal penitentiary for his part in the heist. During his testimony, Gruenwald, who had been put in protective custody under guard of U.S. Marshals, recalled for the jury the 1976 theft and his role in planning the 1978 Lufthansa heist. Gruenwald claimed that after the robbery, Werner told him that he had been promised $300,000 for his role. Gruenwald told the court that he was given $10,000 from Werner who claimed that he had received $80,000. After the Lufthansa heist trial of his friend Louis Werner was completed, Gruenwald was entered into the Witness Protection Program in 1979. It is unknown if Gruenwald rekindled his troubled marriage with his wife or not. Peter died shortly after he was officially integrated into the program on July 12 following the trial of Louis Werner. His death is listed as being caused by natural causes in Washington, D.C.. It is thought that the hardship brought on by the further separation of his estranged wife and the fierce investigation into his role of the Lufthansa heist contributed to an undiagnosed heart condition caused him to die of a heart attack.

References

* "Social Security Death Index"

*"Wiseguy: Life In A Mafia Family" by Nicholas Pileggi

* "The 10,000,000-Dollar Getaway" by Doug Felden

* "Time Magazine", "Cracking the Lufthansa Caper", March 5, 1979
* http://fixapix.com/lhheist.aspx

* "All about the Lufthansa heist gangsters & outlaws/unique gang organizations" by Allan May at http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/gang/heist/1.html